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Dubai Plans To Reinvent Itself Beyond Shopping And MICE
Anindita Chattopadhyay - Mumbai
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| Khalid Ibrahim Bin Nassar |
An average annual growth of 18 per cent since 1997. From 125,000
to 350,000 arrivals in just seven years. No doubt that the success story needed
strategic planning and the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DTCM)
Dubai is bang on target. "We have definitely benefited from the emergence
of short haul and intra-region travel. Our focus has been on making people travel
- be it for leisure, MICE, business, shopping or stopover. We would like to
increase arrivals by 10-12 per cent in 2005 and have planned to reinvent Dubai
as a destination," said Khalid Ibrahim Bin Nassar, officer overseas
promotion, DTCM.
The trend monitor shows that there has been a gradual and
consistent shift towards FIT and small group (eight to ten people) travel. Dovetailing
with the trend, the focus now will be on sports tourism. Dubai has water sports,
14 golf courses, hosts world's largest horse racing event with a total prize
money of US$ 15 million and Formula 3 car racing and water sports as well. "We
are speaking with tour operators to come up with sports packages woven around
golf, the F3, water sports or horse racing events. Based on my understanding
I think it will be a four night five day package clubbed with some sight seeing,"
said Carl Vaz, Country Manager, Dubai Representative in India, DTCM.
The packages will be launched by end March to tap the peak holidaying season.
"We are going organise food fests or launch parties to promote the packages,"
added Vaz. The other focus area of DTCM will be promoting business travel. "DTCM
is also involved in promoting trade relations and investments between India
and Dubai. So we are holding a business roadshow in September in Delhi, Bangalore,
Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad with aim of getting investments into Dubai, which
in turn will increase business travel," informed Nassar.
He is confident that clubbing business with sports will definitely help Dubai
to get the ambitious numbers they are looking at.
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